FORMER APARTHEID PRISONER GETS MOVIE TREATMENT

(VIDEO) Apartheid prisoner Patrick Chamusso gets movie treatment in Catch A Fire.

Apartheid activist Patrick Chamusso was sentenced to Robben Island for 24 years in South Africa in the 1980s for planting bombs in the Secunda oil refinery where he worked. Catch A Fire is his story.

It took years to finally bring Patrick’s life to the screen. Patrick says he was surprised to find they had cast an almost unknown actor like Derek Luke to portray him.

“It shows how the regime treated the people because you couldn’t walk even from nine o’clock or during the night. You couldn’t do whatever you wanted to do. You couldn’t move from city to city. If they want they could accuse you for something that you haven’t done which happened to me. I was arrested without doing anything for the first time. The second time I realized I better do something.”

Director Philip Noyce had Patrick on call 24 hours a day to answer any and all questions to maintain the authenticity of his story.

“They told me they are bringing an actor. I expected someone like Denzel Washington or Samuel Jackson and maybe Cuba Gooding. Then I saw Derek Luke. I didn’t know him. I was a little bit worried about the American accent. Then after 15 minutes or 20 minutes talking to me I did realize he can do it because he did ask all about Patrick. I opened my heart for him. He got inside me. He did a good job.”

Living by the South African creed of forgiveness, Patrick has forgiven his captors, because without that he says he could never move on with his life. He now lives with his wife whom he married after his release from prison with three children of their own, as well as fostering children in his orphanage Two Sisters near his home town of Mozambique.

“He get what he want. Believe it or not. He used to call me at about 12 o’clock saying, ‘Patrick what happens here or there?’ I say, ‘this time of the day man. I’m an old man.’ He said, ‘I’m an old man too but try to remember I’m picking you tomorrow morning.’ Six o’clock the car was there to pick me up to go to the set. I really did help a lot. That’s why the movie is so very close to the truth.”